Our tour bus pulled up a long, rutted driveway to a remote farm. As we stepped out of our bus, a dozen eager border collies of all ages scampered to greet us. Then came the shepherd, whom the dogs clearly loved and followed like a messiah. He proceeded to sit us down in a natural little amphitheater in the turf and explain all about his work. With shouts and whistles, each dog followed individual commands and showed an impressive mastery over the sheep.

It’s hard to find vivid farm experiences in Europe. Do you have any favorites?

On this farm, it was very clear: Sheepdogs are smart…and sheep are idiots.

Our shepherd friend demonstrated why, for thousands of years, people in his profession have used a crook. As he talked, he wasn’t shy about sharing the frustration farmers feel when “fancy people with numbers after their names from the city come to tell them how to manage their land.” And he explained how he believed that the worst thing you can do for the natural environment here is to make it a national park. The experience was vividly real and fascinating.

With good, old-fashioned shears, we each got our chance to shear a sheep…who just lay there, as if at the beauty salon.

No one at home would think of me as a softy for dogs. But when our group got to cuddle the dozen tiny border collie puppies, only a few days old and just starting to open their eyes, I fell in love. The shepherd said it’s good for baby sheepdogs to have contact with humans like our group right from the start. I seriously considered a “puppy-napping.”

About This Entry

Looks like an entertaining and educational sheep farm visit. So I wonder, when everyone gets back home to the USA, will they check “Yes” on the customs entry form that asks if they visited a farm overseas? Unless your trip was strictly within some capitol city or you stayed inside a car on the Autoroute/Motorway/Autobahn, a visit to Europe will likely include being at, or very near, farmland. Even an on-site tasting at a vineyard in France, checking out a Stone Age fort in Western Ireland, or bicycling along a lane in Flanders involves visiting farmland or stepping over or riding around sheep and cattle droppings out in the country. The deal is, checking “Yes” subjects you to intense scrutiny from the US Customs people at the airport at home, as if you must be smuggling contraband produce or you’re transporting pathogens or noxious seeds or spores on your clothes, shoes, and baggage that will kill or overrun native American species. After our last unpleasant experience upon landing home following a bike tour thru West Ireland, my wife has insisted I check “no” in the future, even if we’ve stayed for a week at an agriturismo. I wonder if we lived in California if it would be even worse, where the one thing that can’t make it past the state border is outside fruits/vegetables? US customs officials are far meaner than any I’ve encountered in Europe or Asia. I wonder how they treat visitors to the US, and if it’s just travelling Americans who get such rude treatment when arriving home?

Posted by:
Scott - Jul 16, 2013 10:13 AM

I stayed on a farm in the north of England in the late 90′s that was right out of a James Herriot story complete with gates and dogs. In the morning I woke up to sheep everywhere. They had come down from the fell and were quite the noisy bunch.

I am not sure I agree with the farmer’s condemnation of national parks. I’ve walked in areas with sheep in Scotland and areas without. There’s a difference and we probably need parts of Scotland for both.

Pam

Posted by:
Pam - Jul 16, 2013 06:59 PM

I have followed you for years and frankly it upsets me that you go where you go, do what you do and, most important, earn a living form such a magnificent idea know as your profession. Of course, everything I say here is from pure jealousy and admiration.

Just read your piece on beer…what a great read. Made me envious all over again.

Keep up the good work and let me know when you hop over to the Rhone Valley in France…that will, no doubt, really tick me off:-)

Posted by:
Andrew Witter - Jul 17, 2013 06:23 AM

It is thanks to people like Scott that we have invasive species, outbreaks of mad cow and hoof and mouth disease and other nuisances. The rules are only for the idiots who follow them, right?

Posted by:
Nancy - Jul 18, 2013 08:33 AM

Well, Nancy, I’ve never smuggled in plants or beef (diseased or otherwise), so I guess we’re both idiots for following the rules. Having walked a short distance in a sheep pasture to visit a Stone Age fort with a Rick-Steves-recommended guide, thus “visiting a farm” in Ireland, I checked on my US re-entry form that I’d been to a farm, although 2 weeks had passed and my bags and shoes had been on and off buses and planes, and back in urban areas. Our wonderful customs personnel greeted me rudely and subjected me, my shoes, and my bag to intense scrutiny, apparently testing for traces of some substance – and found NOTHING. If the exterior of my luggage (which did not accompany me onto the farm) was so potentially dangerous, then every other bag in the plane’s baggage compartment should’ve been quarantined in case my suitcase had infested them, too. Glad you’re so perfect that you can make assumptions about me, but YOU may have had a more negative effect on the condition of this earth than YOU realize. And, regardless, that still leaves the USA with comparitively rude, surly customs agents — I wonder if they’re reacting to having encountered you sometime?